how to order coffee in portugal

Coffee drinking is a serious business in Portugal. There’s no way you can come here and not have to order a coffee at some point, so here is some essential information.

These are general guidelines. No two cups of coffee will ever be identical no matter what words you use. Relax, it’s just a drink.

I’m sorry, tugas. I apologise, it’s just a sacred drink. Please go easy on me, I’m just a beginner, a humble student if you please. And please if you have some corrections, additions or some anecdotal contribution to make, be my guest.

The most popular coffee is an espresso. In Lisbon you would order um bica (oong beekuh) and in Porto um cimbalinho (oong simbalEENyo). Elsewhere um café (oong kaFEY).

There are infinite variations on how it comes, so don’t be shy about being specific about your needs. Cheia (shayuh) is a full espresso cup, tres- quartas (tresh kwartas) 3/4 full, a ristretto is called um italiano (small, strong, the first few seconds of the machine’s coffee). You could ask for it não quente (nowng kent; not hot;) and they’ll put a dash of cold water in it for you.

In this pic (below) there is um italiano (top), um bica (right) and um cortado (left). In Portugal a cortado is a standard measure from the ‘small cup’ button on the machine, not to be confused with a spanish cortado (cut with milk, see below).

Staying with the small cup theme, your poison may be um pingo (oong pingoo) also called um pingado (oong pingardoo); an espresso with a drop of milk (sometimes hot milk, sometimes not). Um garoto (below, left) has more milk; about 50/50 coffee-to-milk ratio but still in a small cup. In Spain this is known as a corto or a cortado. In Australia it’s a piccolo caffe latte. Uma carioca (below, right) is the opposite of a ristretto – a full small cup minus the strongest first two seconds of an espresso.

For a long black, or a large black coffee, you would order um abatanado. This could be also called um café americano, but ordering an americano may get you an instant coffee in some places. If that’s what you want then order um nescafe. If you’d like a double espresso, order um café duplo (oong kafEY DOOploo)

Going the milky way, um galão (oong galowng) is served in a tall glass and is about 3/4 milk. Traditionally a galão is made with a second passing of coffee from the machine and is very weak. If you want something more like a caffe latte than coffee flavoured milk, order a um galão directo (deeretoo). You can also ask for a dark one escuro (eshkooroo) or a light one claro (klaroo). Ordering a galão after midday will provoke funny looks, unless you’re over 80. It’s either for breakfast or it’s a nanna’s drink. You might save face by ordering uma meia de leite (maya de late) which is half milk in a regular cup, like a flat white in Australia. But like my half-Australian buddy, you could try ordering a layer de mate, mate 🙂

Special thanks to frogdropping for her impeccable production assistance in the rain and everything.

62 Comments

At last! A detailed dictionary compiled by Emma on coffee etiquette and what the the hell one is drinking. Hello everybody, my name is Rodrigo. I am Portuguese and to this day I have no clue how to order a coffee in Portugal. I can anywhere on earth except Portugal. Portuguese are a quirky and difficult bunch when it comes to muddied waters.
Now when you opening the “Emma Donna do cafe” shop?

mate that is an excellent idea. there’s a huge opening there between sagres and superbock which are essentially the same. like having VB and Reschs and along comes redback. Fantastic idea, which fits perfectly with breakfast. you’ve got the bar franchise at least 😉

Now, some corrections.
In Lisboa you’ll ask for a “bica” (regular expresso) and in Porto you’ll ask for a “cimbalino” (no “h” in that word). This name comes from the name of the coffee machine “La Cimbali”.
And the “Small Few First Seconds” are called “uma italiana” (feminine, of course ;)) and it is a strong flavoured coffee.
As it goes, the oposite is “um carioca” (masculine), a coffee without the first seconds and with a much milder flavour.
All this said, beautifull production.
Can you sleep now????
Kisses from a “bica” lover.

Hi emma.I see you called “cortado” to a full cup of coffee. I’m portuguese and live in Alentejo, and here we say “café cheio” (full coffee).
Usually “abatanado” comes in a large cup, like meia de leite’s cup. I really love coffee, but i think most of the times, coffee is just an excuse to go out and do something. Specially here, we don’t have much to do…
Oh, and “carioca” has a tea version: “carioca de limão”. Is a small cup with a lemon peel, hot water.

If you are finnicky (which Portuguese obviously are prone to be, in a café, at least) you can add “em chávena escaldada” (in a hot cup) or “em chávena fria” (in a cold cup).

I found that the trend is for coffees getting more and more ristretti, so I have to be careful to ask for “uma bica cheia” otherwise I will end up what, in my old-fashioned mind, is “uma italiana”… that by now is a few drops in the bottom of the cup.

Another distinction about galões, is that they can be “de máquina” (with expresso coffee) or “de saco” (with percolated coffee). Maybe in some real old fashioned places you can still have them with chicory instead of real coffee.

Then there is another type of carioca not to be mistaken with these drinks, the “carioca de limão”, an infusion of lemon zest.

Oh now that is cool – a hot cup or cold cup! I forgot to include the cha (thanks for the real name) I think lemon peel tea is unique to portugal. I love it. But what a bout the bica with a drop of lemon? I was given it once as a cure for migraine … I drank it, entirely skeptical of course… and it worked.

I don’t have any corrections to add — I live in Minnesota in the U.S. after all. But, I just loved this posting! Love it, love it — it sounds like the Portuguese are even crazier about coffee than I am. I must come visit at some point – it sounds like Heaven!

it’s definitely one of the things that attracted me… I’m not such a coffee-head but a “cafe culture” shows a nice sociability, and a very democratic “culture”… a sign that people like to take the time to have a chat, and share a cup. And the modern history of portugal was decided in a cafe… all the stories of people meeting, and thinking, and writing, and doing… thank you lorie

I’m not so sure about the “coffee culture” if you mean by that a “Starbucks” sort of thing. A lot of foreigners, at least, are taken aback by the speed (and how often in the day) the Portuguese gulp down a cup of coffee standing at the counter, at least in cities. The seem to expect ALWAYS the use of a café as a gentleman’s club, which, of course, it is another face of reality.

What I think is very specifically Portuguese is the habit of ordering PRECISELY what one wishes, in the most excruciating detail, and coffee is just the acme of that idiosyncrasy… that nobody else understands! I still remember the horrified look on the face of a (very lusophile) Dutchman, sitting at a table with some 5 or 6 Portuguese in an office restaurant, when at the end of the meal he offered to go get coffee: instead of the hands-up count he expected, he was faced with “One from the ladies! (the espresso machine at the counter)”, “Me too!”, “Mine from the normal machine! (a percolator by the cash register)”, “A full small cup! (uma bica cheia, yes?)”, “Thanks, but I’ll get mine from the coin machine! (in another room)”.

Oh, by the way, I’ve also heard “A small coffee in a big cup, please!”

nah, I mean “the habit of going to cafes, not just to feed one’s habit” as the meaning of cafe culture. I think it’s awful that this phrase has somehow been adopted by starbucks to signify the starbucks experience only. Real coffee culture has no brand, and it is certainly more about social anthropology than gastronomy. To me, that is…
As for the porties, well they’d have no problem with the scene in LA Story where the californians each make their order… 🙂

Hi Emma,I just love your blog.I’m also Australian, my parents are Portuguese.I was also born in 1969.Love the photos of the pastelarias,coffee looks great.So does the Bola de Berlim.I loved these & tracked all over to find the perfect one.

Reading the post & comments reminds me of the quirkiness of Portuguese coffee culture. When I travelled back for the first time with my Canadian husband, he was astonished of the sheer number of cafes in Lisboa (& that they were never empty). And likewise, I always chuckle when reminded of my mom’s experience with coffee once she immigrated to Canada–she couldn’t understand why people were drinking such huge amounts of weak coffee & why they insist nowadays to carry cups of this bad coffee around everywhere they go. Thanks for this post & photos. (fico com muito saudades) Cheers!

Chatting with a friend yesterday I was reminded of a coffee specialty that seems to have gone out of fashion, unfortunately (I bet that it will be recovered by Nestlé one of these days, like ice tea, so much worse than the real thing): masagrã! Or rather, it’s original French name, mazagran, that seems to mean the cup itself but for us is the drink: weak coffee with ice and a zest of lemon. Delightfully refreshing in the summer!

Oh, and our friend wiki tells us that Starbucks and Pepsi DID try to pull the stunt that Nestlé has pulled with ice tea, but failed:

This is amazing, I love your attention to detail, which makes you a connaisseur of Portuguese coffee. Which does not go too far from being espresso and close relatives… :-]

It’s very interesting to see the things we – the portuguese – grew up with as seen with totally different eyes. Mind you that not everyone is the same and most of all people in different regions act and react differently.

Good luck with _all_ ‘our’ genders :-] which I believe were invented to confuse anyone trying to learn portuguese. hehehehe

Hello Emma,
Lovelly blog.
I’m portuguese and I love coffee!
I came across your blog because I was looking for the definition of abatanado, to explain to my friends on facebook…
Very good post!
Best regards,
Ana

But I would mention plain brewed coffee on boiling water.
Expresso completely took over and all the coffee you will taste on a portuguese caffé will come from an expresso machine. That said it’s still very popular among older people to brew coffee in the mornings and drink it either simple or with some milk.

Since very young age, I’ve been having a cup of coffee with milk and a sandwich for breakfast. Nothing beats the smell of fresh brewed coffee in the mornings.
Sical and Delta still sell copious amounts of coffee to this market.

Loved the post, I am Portuguese. This one “Ordering a galão after midday will provoke funny looks, unless you’re over 80.” makes me laugh but just a small correction, you can drink galão in the meal between lunch and dinner, no one will give you funny looks after 4h~5h in the afternoon. I think people give you funny looks because if you drink it before this hours they will assume that you just awake up and are taking breakfast.

Congrats on the café report. As a portuguese temporarly in the US I have made the same kind of report but describing the amount of different latte, iced mocca, for-here or to to-go, tall medium or gigantic cup, and the main difference is just that we don’t get to choose the coffee grain. ( also, ours have much more funny names. ).

it’s all about the names for sure. I overheard someone making a coffee order the other day, giving the details for the cup size, amount of coffee, milk, temperature etc… “A Carioca!” I said. “In Portugal, what you want has a name!” He was very pleased that his preferred recipe was recognised somewhere:). We call a meia de leite a Flat White here. HOW BORING.

Hi! I just found this post and loved it! Let me add another (very portuguese) variation: Many people like the bica really hot and request it in a hot cup (chávena quente) but in the summer there’s the habit of taking it with a cold glass of water, to drink between sips of coffee. 🙂

I love um galão and yes I order it morning, afternoon and night! Yes I get funny looks and yes when I order an evening meal in a restaurant they always laugh at me…but hey I am a nanny allbeit a young nanny and I just love Portuguese coffee!!

Living in Lisbon as an expat and just having been introduced to the ‘abatanado’ after a year of drinking only galão, this is a great list of variations of this important drink aka The Black Gold! 🙂

Thank you Emma, one question: do basically all the waiters behind the counters know this? Because my Portuguese is not good enough to explain exactly how to make these different coffees in Portuguese. My Portuguese is ok, but this would make me quite nervous in a filled coffee place 😀

“Um carioca” (it’s with “um” and not “uma”, a “carioca”, for some reason is male … btw a “bica” is female … “uma bica”) is a coffee made after the expresso. It’s made with the leftovers of the last expresso.

“a full small cup minus the strongest first two seconds of an espresso” is “um escorrido”.

I know this because I’m Portuguese and I work in a coffee shop.

An “Americano” is Half coffee half hot water, “Abatanado” is like an expresso plus a “carioca”. It’s not the same, because the “Abatanado” is stronger. The best way to order an “Americano” is to describe what it is: “Large cup, half expresso, half hot water”.

A “Garoto” is a short expresso or a risttreto and the rest is with hot milk.

A cortado may not be the best way to order a half cup of expresso, you may get the spannish cortado! The best way would be to order a half expresso, “bica a meio”, “expresso a meio”.

The safest way is to describe what you want. Even portuguese people have a hard time ordering a coffee in Portugal, but I tell you, it’s way harder for the ones serving it.

Great article. I wanted to chime in on English pronunciation for “ão”, like Galão, and João (popular male name) – just use OUN, like it SOUNDS in SOUND, ROUND, FOUND, etc., letters after the N are silent… to get the perfect ROUN[D] SOUN[D]-ing nasal end. And there is no G sound in “UM”/”UN”. “OON” is closer to the sound than OONG, and it rhymes with TUNE or TOMB but again, endings tend to disappear in Portuguese. Unless you’re in Brazil.